So this week has been all about sourdoughs! 

Wayne's on holiday, so we've been taught my Emmanuel.  It's been really nice to be taught by a baker with such a different approach to Wayne.  Emmanuel's a very instinctive baker, whereas Wayne is more methodical.  So we've had a little more freedom this week; Emmanuel's gave us rough outlines of what we needed to achieve, then let us get on with it, calling everyone together when he wanted to demonstrate a particular technique or method.

One of the first things we did this week, was to create our own sourdough starters.  Some of the class have already done this at home, but I haven't, so I found it really quite exciting!

It's so simple; you just take a couple of heaped tablespoons of rye or white flour, add enough water to make a thick paste, then mix it together by hand.  This is what mine looked like on Monday...

This was towards the end of the day, so they'd sat in a warm, but switched off oven quietly fermenting.  It's had to tell, but there are a few bubbles on the top of the white sourdough (right), & if you were to look at the side of the rye sourdough (left), you'd be able to see the bubbles there too  =)

This was the sourdoughs at the end of today, so they'd been fed with more flour & water four times since Monday, & by golly how they'd grown!  The white sourdough had gone a little crazy & had grown right to the top of the tub, before dropping back down again!  The rye had grown as well, but as that mixture is a little heavier & denser, it's not as easy to tell from the photo  =)

Both my sourdough babies came home with me today, & they're now quietly resting in the fridge, where they'll sleep happily until I need them  =)

I really want to come up with names for them, but I can't decide if that's a little crazy, or perfectly natural!  In any case, I think I should wait until I've baked with them before I go giving them names  =)

Anyway, back to the breads!  Emmanuel gave us four sourdough recipes to work with; a white whey sourdough, a beetroot sourdough, a tomato sourdough & a chocolate & currant sourdough.  Each group had to make all the recipes, but could make changes to the base recipe if they wanted.

The white whey sourdough was going to be fermented the longest.  We needed to make up the sourdough starter on Monday, using a small amount of existing rye sourdough, some white flour & whey.  The whey we used was actually from the cheese making we did last Thursday, so that was really nice  =)

On Tuesday, we made a poolish using the sourdough starter, & then today we made up the dough & baked the breads.  The poolish looked really promising; it had grown a lot & was full of bubbles, & the dough, though wet, felt really nice too.  There was some strength to it, so we were hoping for some nice breads.  We'd even put some of the lactic cheese we made last week through half the batch, to really emphasise the cheesiness...

Sadly, we had some difficulty getting the doughs out of the banatons once it came time to bake them off, & they didn't have a lot of volume to them... We think the poolish had been sat for too long in a too warm environment, so the wild yeasts had more or less exhausted themselves by the time they were baked off...  They came out of the oven really late, so I don't have a picture at the moment, but I'll certainly get one tomorrow, & let you know how they taste  =)

With made some tomato, chocolate & beetroot sourdoughs on Monday, then retarded them overnight & baked then Tuesday, so we could see what we thought of the flavours before deciding on any changes to the final breads.  In the end, we decided the beetroot would benefit from some horseradish through the dough, to lift the flavour & give it a bit of zing.  With the chocolate sourdough, we decided to reduce the amount of currants, & add in some pecans, cherries & cranberries.  We didn't make any changes to the tomato in the end.

This was our beetroot sourdough, with Monday's effort on the left, & today's amended (& improved) loaf on the right.  There's a big difference to the colour of the breads; the beetroot is much more pronounced in today's loaf, although we're not really sure why that is.  The beetroot was just grated for both batches, so we're not sure if the horseradish had an effect on it at all...  We autolysed the flour & water for today's breads, so the crumb structure is far better, much more open & with a better texture.

The tomato sourdoughs, with Mondays on the right & today's on the left.  Again we autolysed the flour & water for today's breads, so we have another much improved crumb structure & texture.  We also added more tomato puree, to give it a stronger flavour & better colour.

And finally the chocolate sourdough, with today's bread on the left, & Mondays on the right.  We didn't autolyse this time, but we did soak the dried fruits in water before mixing them into the dough for today's bread.  Mondays loaf was quite dry, whereas today's was much softer, so that was definitely a good idea  =)

The crumb structure was never going to be particularly open because of all the inclusions, but the flavour was much improved by using the cherries & cranberries  =)

We also had the opportunity to make a sourdough bread of our choice today, ideally working alone.  I choose to do a fig, walnut & star anise sourdough & made the starter up yesterday, using a rye base.

I was quite pleased with how they came out  =)  I haven't tried them yet, but I'm hoping they'll be tasty, although, thinking about it, I'm not the biggest fan of star anise... Maybe next time I do these I'll use different spices!

I've really enjoyed working with the sourdoughs this week; it's a much slower process, so patience is a must, but the vibrancy & depth of flavours you get from working with sourdoughs are absolutely worth the wait  =)